


Travel Time

by Glishara



Category: Honor Harrington Series - David Weber
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-26
Updated: 2010-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:33:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glishara/pseuds/Glishara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Inconvenient of the Peeps, Alistair mused, not to place their top-secret prison planet a little closer to Allied territory...</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Travel Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Flora (florahart)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/florahart/gifts).



> Written for the Yuletide 2008 Challenge.

The shuddering of the deck plates underfoot was ominous to a trained naval officer, but Alistair was fast learning to ignore it. Habit could build quickly, under the right conditions. The labor of the environmental plants was taking its toll on the vessel, and while his engineering team was doing a solid job of keeping ahead of the disaster, Alistair would have been happiest to shave a good week off the trip.

_Damned inconvenient of the Peeps,_ he mused with an edge of self-mockery, _not to place their top-secret prison planet a little closer to Allied territory. Downright uncivil._

One of his engineering techs, passing by, met his grin with an uncertain smile of her own, and Alistair tamped down what he suspected was a distinctly manic expression.

They were all suffering from a touch of mania these days, celebration boiling out at spontaneous intervals. It had been odd, settling back into his role as ship's captain, maintaining his separation from the chaos of excitement that gripped the crew and passengers. He knew it was necessary, but it was an odd note of sorrow amid the joy: a loneliness he'd come near to forgetting in all those months on Hell. A commander's life was always like that. He didn't regret it. Most of the time.

The officer's mess was nearly empty when he arrived, late for the meal. The steward on duty gave him a faintly disapproving look, which he met with an unrepentant shrug.

The meal was more Peep rations: they'd wasted no volume packing any finer food. Alistair had to make himself take his time, chewing and swallowing thoroughly. It was nutritious, at least, and filling, if not exactly satisfying. When he was back on Manticore, he promised himself for not the first time, he was going to pay a visit to Dempsey's, and maybe Cosmo's. God knew he'd accrued enough pay during his time away to be able to afford it.

The door slid open, and he looked up to see Sabrina Longmont step into the room. She did the same automatic scan of the room he'd done on arrival, and their eyes met for a few seconds. After a brief hesitation, he nodded, and she returned the greeting in kind. He watched her as she moved to get her ration, then caught her eye again as she turned. He gestured to the chair opposite his own in invitation.

He thought for a moment that she might decline. She paused, looking at him from across the room, her expression thoughtful. He returned her regard with a knitted brow. Finally, she gave him a faint, unreadable nod and moved to join him, sliding into the chair opposite him.

"Citizen Admiral Longmont," he said. "Are you enduring the trip?"

She smiled at that, taking her cue from his tone. "Barely," she said dryly. "I think that most of us have endured worse for less, however."

"Hah. No denying that." Alistair's smile was a bit lopsided. "And with less of a light at the end of the tunnel."

Longmont nodded her own grim acknowledgment of that. She wasn't eating, and Alistair gestured toward her ration with one hand. "It doesn't get better with age."

"You've already finished," she pointed out, nodding her chin towards his empty plate. "I don't want to keep you."

"While I attend to my critical duties?" Alistair asked ruefully. "I think the ship is running itself well enough for this watch. I was actually just thinking about the isolation of command."

"Ah," she said simply. "The mood around the ship is wearing on you?"

"I suspected you'd understand."

She nodded silent acknowledgment and poked at her ration with the fine silver of the officer's mess. Alistair had barely noticed the incongruity when he ate his own meal, but now the elegant cutlery caught his eye and held it. He let her eat a few bites without interruption. She chewed with the same careful consideration he had used.

"Are your roommates..." He trailed off, making an inarticulate gesture with his hand.

"Polite?" she filled in the pause. "Yes. We haven't precisely struck up lifelong friendships, but they are civil, and we don't much intrude on each other. They would probably be happier not to be rooming with an" -- her lips twitched upwards -- "unregenerate Peep. But these aren't exactly normal circumstances."

"And are you?"

The smile left her face, and he regretted the impulsive question. But there was no way to unsay it. "I don't know any more," she admitted frankly. "I'll be going on to Beowulf, I think, with Admiral Parnell, and on from there. There is no way back from home for me."

He nodded soberly. For a minute, silence stretched, and she remembered her meal only belatedly. She poked at her ration with her fork, slicing another bite off of it. Alistair watched her chew and wondered, not for the first time, what choice he would have made in her place. God willing, he'd never be put there, but Haven must have its Alistair McKeons, its Honor Harringtons, its good people in a hopeless situation. He hoped, if it came, he'd have the strength of character to do as Sabrina Longmont had, and hold true to an ideal as purely as possible in the absence of any reality to support it.

"You know," Longmont said after a moment, her voice very dry, "I think the rations are designed to get harder to chew when someone is staring at you."

Alistair felt his face heat, and covered it by coughing into his hand. "Hah," he tried gallantly. "It's just the air in here. Too dry for eating. I have--" He paused, then threw his lot into the wind. "I have a bottle of good wine back in my room, if you want something to wash it down with."

Her eyes widened, almost imperceptibly. Alistair hadn't fully considered the words before he spoke them, but looking at them now, he realized he had meant them absolutely, and in... whatever context she chose to take them.

Longmont was, he judged, considering the same question of his intent. After a moment, she gave a careful response, "I'd be glad of a brief drink, Commodore McKeon."

He tasted that answer. It was... not exactly what he'd hoped for. But it was a start. After all. they had a good two weeks of travel time left. He rose and offered her his arm. She took it.

In the end, they didn't need those two weeks at all, though they were glad enough to have them.


End file.
